Christianity is treated differently from other religions in the UK. Partly due to fear of offending other groups but also because Christians need to be more demonstrative
In 2005, Jerry Springer the Opera, announced tour dates in the UK after a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2002. The subsequent success it had already achieved prompted the national tour and the 21-theatre tour was hoped to be the start of something bigger. But it seemed that the producers hadn’t accounted for the protests from Christian groups.
Christian Voice threatened to picket theatres and this lead to nine of the 21 theatres pulling out of the tour. In Plymouth, on opening night 40 Christian protesters showed up; in York, a smaller group of protesters handed out leaflets; in Manchester, the protesters were outnumbered by freedom of speech anti-protesters who were protesting against the protesters; in Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh there were only a small number of protesters; in Brighton, there were about 100 protesters on the opening night, a number which quickly dwindled to single figures for most of the other nights; and in Newcastle over 300 protesters turned up on the opening night. But the productions went ahead in the UK. The play is due to open in Chicago in Spring 2007.
When the performance was transferred to a television play in the UK, it became the most complained about programme in the history of the BBC, receiving over 47,000 complaints. But it was still broadcast.
The complaints centred on the portrayal of Jesus as a nappy-wearing, swearing, blasphemous character
The play Behzti, which included scenes of rape, physical abuse and murder in a temple, also drew complaints from the Sikh community in Britain. On the opening night in December 2004, hundreds of Sikhs gathered outside the theatre in Birmingham England, which led to an emergency meeting of the theatre management, the police and the local Sikh community. T
he result? The theatre decided to stop performances. But why the decision was taken that Behzti offended Sikhs but Jerry Springer the Opera didn’t has never been absolutely resolved, but it seems that the National Secular Society didn’t intervene against the Sikhs as they proudly stood up for the case of the BBC.
And as for Muslims, people are either trying to offend their religion, or doing everything in their powers to give them more space and time, for fear of excluding them.
Religion is also severely restricted on mainstream radio and television in the UK. This isn’t always the case in other countries, but it’s a sad fact that Christianity is often the most prominent religion (in terms of the number of its followers) which is pushed to the back. For a Christian country – and around three-quarters of the UK still count themselves as Christian – it seems as though those with the loudest voice are those who are listened to.
Maybe those who want to be heard need to shout louder.
